I made these cookies and LOVED them! I had one problem though. They spread so much that they were flat and the pudding was just a little thing in the middle. How do you keep them so thick? I used the 2 tbsp cookie scoop and I was really careful not to put too much in it. This happened for me as well with the sin-a-buns, which are a similar type of thumbprint cookie. I just wish I knew what I was doing wrong because the taste is all there. It is just too spread out.

Hi, Em. I ground the oatmeal so that the cookie would be smooth and similar in texture to a regular sugar cookie. I haven't made these with "whole" oatmeal, but I think it should work OK. Let me know how they turn out! :-)

...Em, one other thing: Because I measured the oatmeal *after* I ground it in the food processor, I didn't keep track of what the measurement would be for whole oatmeal. You might want to start with 3/4 cup of whole oatmeal and, if the dough is too wet or loose, add 1/4 cup at a time until the dough is the right consistency. :-)

Hey, Laurel. Yay!!! I'm *so* glad you liked these guys. I've thought about your question, and I think I have a couple solutions:

1) Try baking the cookies at a slightly lower temperature--maybe 325 instead of 350. If you're oven runs fast/hot, it might cause the butter in the dough to melt too quickly, causing the cookies to flatten and spread before they're fully baked.

2) When you make the thumbprints in the dough balls, try pinching the walls of the dough ball so that you build the wall of the opening up a little. Your dough ball will look more cylindrical than spherical.

My eggnog cookies at first turned out flat. I baked only 3 at first because I wanted to test it out and sure enough they were flat discs. I just added a bit more oatmeal and flour to thicken them up and came out with perfect cookies.

Also, Thanks for the suggestion OCG, I will try them out, probably with whole oatmeal, after the new year.

Hi, Em. Did you use the eggnog syrup/flavoring in place of the melted butterscotch chips? If so, that might have made the wet ingredients wetter/looser, which would make the cookies flatter. But it sounds like you solved it by adding a smidge more oatmeal and flour to absorb the extra liquid. Good work! :-)

Greg-I made them again and added little more flour and ground oatmeal and I cooked them at a lower temp and Voila!...perfection! I will have to do this in the future with some of the other cookies that flattened for me. Thanks for the tips!